KEY POINTS:
LOS ANGELES - The PGA Tour, the Royal & Ancient (R&A) and other leading golf organisations outlined a comprehensive anti-doping policy for the sport today that will begin in 2008.
A list of banned substances has been drawn up and the methods by which each organisation will administer the programme are expected to be finalised by the end of the year.
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem told a teleconference the anti-doping measures had been specifically co-ordinated on a global basis.
"If a player was disciplined, including suspension, in some part of the world, that action would be recognised under a reciprocity agreement with the other organisations since players play on multiple tours in multiple tournaments," he said.
The list of banned substances includes anabolic agents, hormones, diuretics, stimulants, narcotics, beta blockers and masking agents.
Prime movers in shaping the global anti-doping policy were the PGA Tour in the United States, the European Tour, the R&A, the Ladies Professional Golf Association, Augusta National Golf Club, the PGA of America and the United States Golf Association.
Other signatories will include the Australasian Tour, Canadian Tour, Japan Professional Golf Tour, Sunshine Tour and Tour de Las America.
Although golf appears to be unaffected by performance-enhancing drugs, there have been widespread calls for the governing bodies to put testing policies in place.
The LPGA Tour left the game's other major tours lagging behind when it announced plans last November to start drug testing players in the first quarter of 2008.
"With the other organisations, there will be different timetables," Finchem said.
"The European Tour has already announced they will begin testing some time in 2008.
"We will include testing in a recommendation to our board in November to commence some time in the late spring, after we have had a thorough opportunity to educate players, when the entire policy will be brought on line on the United States tour."
R&A chief executive Peter Dawson, who has spearheaded the drive for a global anti-doping policy, said: "It's terrific all the major golf organisations of the world have come together in this initiative.
"The R&A has no reason to believe golf is anything other than a clean sport but we've been supportive of a co-ordinated, international effort to test for drugs for quite some time now so we can demonstrate our sport is clean and we can keep it that way.
"We are delighted we are going to have a great degree of international consistency in the way this subject is handled. It is a very good day for golf."
The R&A, which governs golf in all countries except the US and Mexico, introduced anti-doping measures for the first time at last year's world amateur team championship in Cape Town.
- REUTERS
